[LON-CAPA-cvs] cvs: doc /help texxml2latex.pl
bowersj2
lon-capa-cvs@mail.lon-capa.org
Mon, 21 Jul 2003 20:32:08 -0000
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--bowersj21058819528
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bowersj2 Mon Jul 21 16:32:08 2003 EDT
Modified files:
/doc/help texxml2latex.pl
Log:
Improvements to pod support, documentation added in texxml2latex.pl
instead of seperate README file.
--bowersj21058819528
Content-Type: text/plain
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="bowersj2-20030721163208.txt"
Index: doc/help/texxml2latex.pl
diff -u doc/help/texxml2latex.pl:1.7 doc/help/texxml2latex.pl:1.8
--- doc/help/texxml2latex.pl:1.7 Mon Jul 21 11:22:14 2003
+++ doc/help/texxml2latex.pl Mon Jul 21 16:32:08 2003
@@ -79,29 +79,25 @@
if ($tag eq 'pod') {
my $file = $attr->{'file'};
- my $section = $attr->{'section'};
+ my $section = $attr->{'section'};
if (!defined($section)) { $section = ''; }
else {
- $section = "-section $section";
- # Escape the pipes so they are considered ORs in the
- # RE for podselect's "section" option, and not
- # pipes by the shell:
- $section =~ s/\|/\\\|/g;
+ $section = "-section '$section'";
}
+ my $h1level = $attr->{'h1level'};
+ if (!defined($h1level)) { $h1level = '2'; }
$file = '../../loncom/' . $file;
- my $tempfile = 't' . substr($file, rindex($file, '/') + 1);
- system ("cp $file $tmpdir");
- # The "echo" command is necessary; pod2latex can't
- # handle a perl file that *starts* with pod.
- system ("echo > $tmpdir/$tempfile; cat $file | podselect $section >> $tmpdir/$tempfile; cd $tmpdir; pod2latex -h1level 2 $tempfile");
- my $latexFile = substr($tempfile, 0, rindex($tempfile, '.')) . '.tex';
+ my $filename = substr($file, rindex($file, '/') + 1);
+ system ("cp $file $tmpdir\n");
+ system ("cd $tmpdir; pod2latex -h1level $h1level $section $filename\n");
+ my $latexFile = substr($filename, 0, rindex($filename, '.')) . '.tex';
open LATEX_FILE, $tmpdir . '/' . $latexFile;
# pod2latex inserts \labels and \indexs for every section,
# which is horrible because the section names tend to get
# reused a lot. This filters those out, so we need to do
# create our own indexes.
for (<LATEX_FILE>) {
- $_ =~ s/\\([^{]*)section(\*?)\{([^\\]+)\\label\{[^\\]+\}\\index\{([^\\]+)\}\}/\\\1section\2\{\3\}/g;
+ $_ =~ s/\\([^{]*)(section|paragraph)(\*?)\{([^\\]+)\\label\{[^\\]+\}\\index\{([^\\]+)\}\}/\\\1\2\3\{\4\}/g;
print $_;
}
print "\n\n";
@@ -115,3 +111,274 @@
# Remove the temp directory
system ("rm -rf $tmpdir");
+
+__END__
+
+=pod
+
+=head1 NAME
+
+texxml2latex.pl - core script that drives the help file assembly
+ applications
+
+=head1 SYNOPSIS
+
+LON-CAPA's help system is based on assembling various pieces into
+LaTeX files for conversion into printed documents. The various pieces
+can also be used as online help.
+
+=head1 OVERVIEW
+
+X<help system, overview>LON-CAPA's help system is based on the idea of
+assembling various pieces as needed to create documents for printing,
+and using these various pieces for online help. LaTeX is the primary
+language of the help system, because we can easily convert it to HTML,
+and it makes the nicest printed documents.
+
+The scripts for the help system are stored in /docs/help in the CVS
+repository.
+
+=head2 Data Sources
+
+The help system can draw from the following sources to create help
+documents:
+
+=over 4
+
+=item * B<LaTeX fragments>: LaTeX fragments stored in
+C</loncom/html/adm/help/tex> in the CVS repository (which end up in
+C</home/httpd/html/adm/help/tex>). A "LaTeX fragment" is a file that
+contains LaTeX-style markup, but is not a complete LaTeX file with
+header and footer.
+
+=item * B<perl POD documentation>: POD documentation may be extracted
+from perl modules used in LON-CAPA, using the syntax described in
+podselect's man page.
+
+=back
+
+=head2 Online Help
+
+The online aspect of the help system is covered in the documentation
+for loncommon.pm; see L<Apache::loncommon>, look for
+C<help_open_topic>.
+
+Online help can only come from LaTeX fragments.
+
+Access to the printed documents is partially provided online by
+rendering the help files structure in a way that allows the user to
+click through to the underlying help files; see
+L<http://msu.loncapa.org/adm/help/author.manual.access.hlp> for an
+example. It's not very good, but it's marginally better then nothing.
+
+=head2 Offline Documents
+
+Offline documents are generated from XML documents which tell a
+rendering script how to assemble the various LaTeX fragments into a
+single LaTeX file, which is then rendered into PostScript and PDF
+files, suitable for download and printing.
+
+=head1 texxml And Rendering texxml
+
+=head2 texxml
+
+X<texxml>
+texxml is a little XML file format used to specify to the texxml2*.pl
+scripts how to assemble the input sources into LaTeX documents. texxml
+files end in the .texxml extension, and there is one texxml file per
+final rendered document.
+
+The texxml format is as follows: There is a root <texxml> element,
+with no attributes and the following children:
+
+=over 4
+
+=item * B<title>: The B<name> attribute of this tag is used as the
+ title of the document in texxml2index.pl; it is ignored in
+ texxml2latex.pl. If you don't intend to offer online-access
+ to the rendered documents this may be skipped.
+
+=item * B<section>, B<subsection>, and B<subsubsection>: These create
+ the corresponding environments in the output file. The B<name>
+ attribute is used to determine the name of the section.
+
+=item * B<file>: The C<name> attribute specifies a LaTeX fragment by
+ filename. The file is assumed to be located in the
+ C<loncom/html/adm/help/tex/> directory in the CVS repository. The
+ C<.tex> is required.
+
+=item * B<tex>: The contents of the B<content> attribute are directly
+ inserted into the rendered LaTeX file, followed by a paragraph
+ break. This is generally used for little connective paragraphs in
+ the documentation that don't make sense in the online help. See
+ C<author.manual.texxml> for several example usages.
+
+=item * B<pod>: The B<file> attribute specified a file to draw the POD
+ documentation out of. The B<section> attribute is a section
+ specification matching the format specified in the man page of
+ podselect. By default, all POD will be included. The file is
+ assumed to be relative to the C<loncom> directory in the CVS
+ repository; you are allowed to escape from that with .. if
+ necessary. The B<h1level> attribute can be used to change
+ the default depth of the headings; by default, this is set to 2,
+ which makes =head1 a "subsection". Setting this higher can allow
+ you to bundle several related pod files together; see
+ developer.manual.texxml for examples.
+
+=back
+
+texxml2latex.pl will automatically include C<Latex_Header.tex> at the
+beginning and C<Latex_Footer.tex> at the end, to make a complete
+document LaTeX document.
+
+=head2 Rendering texxml X<texxml, rendering>
+
+=head3 render.texxml.pl X<render.texxml.pl>
+
+The C<render.texxml.pl> script takes a .texxml file, and produces
+PostScript and PDF files. The LaTeX files will be given access to .eps
+files in the C</loncom/html/adm/help/eps/> directory while
+rendering. Call it as follows, from the C<doc/help> directory:
+
+ perl render.texxml.pl -- author.manual.texxml
+
+substituting the appropriate texxml file.
+
+=head3 texxml2latex.pl X<texxml2latex.pl>
+
+texxml2latex.pl is a perl script that takes texxml in and assembles
+the final LaTeX file, outputting it on stout. Invoke it as follows:
+
+ perl texxml2latex.pl author.manual.texx
+
+Note that there is no error handling; if the script can not find a
+.tex file, it is simply ignored. Generally, if a file is not in the
+final render, it either could not be found, or you do not have
+sufficient permissions with the current user to read it.
+
+=head3 texxml2index.pl X<texxml2index.pl>
+
+texxml2index.pl is a perl script that takes texxml in and assembles a
+file that can be used online to access all the .tex files that are
+specified in the .texxml file. For an example of how this looks
+online, see
+C<http://msu.loncapa.org/adm/help/author.manual.access.hlp>.
+
+=head2 texxml support
+
+There are a couple of scripts that you may find useful for creating
+texxml-based help:
+
+=head3 latexSplitter.py X<latexSplitter.py>
+
+latexSplitter.py is a Python script that helps you seperate a
+monolithic .tex file into the small pieces LON-CAPA's help system
+expects. Invoke it like this:
+
+ python latexSplitter.py monolithic.tex
+
+where C<monolithic.tex> is the .tex file you want to split into
+pieces. This requires Python 2.1 or greater (2.0 may work); on many
+modern RedHat installs this is installed by default under the
+executable name C<python2>.
+
+Use the program by highlighting the desired section, give it a file
+name in the textbox near the bottom, and hit the bottom button. The
+program will remove that text from the textbox, and create a file in
+the C<loncom/html/adm/help/tex/> directory containing that LaTeX. For
+consistency, you should use underscores rather then spaces in the
+filename, and note there are a few naming conventions for the .tex
+files, which you can see just by listing the
+C<loncom/html/adm/help/tex/> directory.
+
+The idea behind this program is that if you are writing a big document
+from scratch, you can use a "real" program like LyX to create the .tex
+file, then easily split it with this program.
+
+=head3 simpleEdit.py X<simpleEdit.py>
+
+simpleEdit.py is a python script that takes a .texxml file and shows
+all the tex files that went into in sequence, allowing you to "edit"
+the entire document as one entity. Note this is intended for simple
+typo corrections and such in context, not major modification of the
+document. Invoke it with
+
+ python simpleEdit.py author.manual.texxml
+
+Make your changes, and hit the "Save" button to save them.
+
+=head2 texxml LaTeX Feature Support
+
+=head3 Cross-referencing
+
+LaTeX has a cross-referencing system build around labeling points in
+the document with \label, and referencing those labels with \ref. In a
+complete LaTeX document, there's no problem because all \refs and
+\labels are present. However, for the online help, \ref'ing something
+that is not in the current LaTeX fragment causes a TTH error when it
+can't find the crossreference.
+
+The solution is to do the cross-references for TTH. When LON-CAPA is
+installed, the C<rebuildLabelHahs.pl>X<rebuildLabelHash.pl> script
+is executed, which extracts all the labels from the LaTeX fragments
+and stores them in the C<fragmentLabels.gdbm>X<fragmentLabels.gdbm> hash.
+The C<lonhelp.pm> handler then replaces \refs with appropriate
+HTML to provide a link to the referenced help file while online. Thus,
+you can freely use references, even in online help.
+
+=head3 Indexing
+
+LaTeX has a popular index making package called MakeIndex. LON-CAPA's
+help system supports this, so you can create indices using the \index
+LaTeX command. In perl POD files, use the X command. Note that in both
+cases the index text is not included in the render, so you need to
+specify the exact index.
+
+=head1 Writing POD: Style
+
+Adopting a little bit from everybody who has included POD in their
+documents to date, the help system is going to expect the following
+format for POD documentation.
+
+The POD should start with a C<=head1> with the title C<NAME> (in caps
+as shown). The following paragraph should extremely briefly describe
+what the module does and contains. Example:
+
+ =head1 NAME
+
+ Apache::lonflunkstudent - provides interface to set all
+ student assessments point score to 0
+
+Next should be a C<head1> titled C<SYNOPSIS> which contains a
+paragraph or two description of the module.
+
+ =head1 SYNOPSIS
+
+ lonflunkstudent provides a handler to select a student and set all
+ assignment values to zero, thereby flunking the student.
+
+ Routines for setting all assessments to some value are provided by
+ this module, as well as some useful student taunting routines.
+
+Optionally, an C<OVERVIEW> section can be included. This can then be
+extracted by the help system for the LON-CAPA subsystems overview
+chapter. The overview should be a relatively high-level, but still
+technical, overview of the module, sufficient to give the reader
+enough context to understand what the module does, what it might be
+useful for in other contexts, and what is going on in the code when it
+is read.
+
+The remainder should be formatted as appropriate for the file, such
+that discarding the NAME, SYNOPSIS, and OVERVIEW sections provides a
+useful API overview of the module.
+
+Routines that are private to the module should B<not> be documented;
+document them in perl comments, or, as is the style of the time, not
+at all, as is appropriate.
+
+Method and function names should be bolded when being
+documented. Indexing should be done as appropriate, using the X
+perldoc command. Literal string such as filename should be enclosed in
+the C command, like this: C</home/httpd/lonTabs/>.
+
+=cut
--bowersj21058819528--